Documenting Nigerian languages - the history

[Oluko Obadele]

Documenting Nigerian languages - the history
Documenting Nigerian languages - the history

The documentation of some languages of Nigeria started already in the 17th century. The first Nigerian language - as far as is known - to be recorded by Europeans was the Kalabari variety of Ijo. These were the numerals one to five (Jenewari 1989).

Eraly records of other Nigerian languages can be found in the monumental Polyglotta Africana, a collection of wordlists taken from freed slaves in Freetown (Sierra Leone) by Koelle (1854).

Early monographs on Nigerian languages were Jacob F. Schön's Grammatical sketch of the Haussa language (1842) and Vocabulary of the Haussa language (1843). About the same time, Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther produced the earliest publications on his own language, A dictionary of the Yoruba language (1843) and Grammar and vocabulary of the Yoruba language (1852).
Grammars
Since then many more titles on the grammar of Hausa and Yoruba – and also of other Nigerian languages – have been added, using different theoretical approaches, e.g.

Transformational-generative:

* Williamson, K. (1965). A grammar of the Kolokuma dialect of Ijo. West African Language Monographs 2. Cambridge University Press.
* Newman, P. (1970). A grammar of Tera. Univ. Of California Publications: Linguistics 57, Berkeley.

Scale-and-category model:

* Bamgbose, A. (1966). A grammar of Yoruba. West African Language Monographs 5. Cambridge University Press.

Case Grammar:

* Newman, R.M. (1971). A case grammar of Ga'anda. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA.

Tagmemics:

* Wedekind, K. (1972). An outline of the Grammar of Busa (Nigeria). Hamburg: Buske.

Many of the grammatical descriptions of Nigerian languages are highly technical and very hard to read for someone who is not initiated into the theoretical bias of the author. Some authors have tried to be less technical, writing what is called a reference grammar, i.e. A more prose-like description of the major grammatical constructions, illustrated with lots of examples:

* Hutchinson (1983). The Kanuri language. A reference grammar.
* Stennes, Leslie H. (1967). A Reference Grammar of Adamawa Fulfulde. African Studies Centre: African Language Monographs No. 8, Michigan.

But most Nigerian languages still wait for the first grammar to be written about them.
Dictionaries
There are a number of very good dictionaries of Nigerian languages:

* Abraham, R.C. (1962). Dictionary of the Hausa Language. University of London Press, London.
* Bargery, G.P. (1934). A Hausa-English Dictionary and English-Hausa Vocabulary. London.
* Adams, R.F.G. (1952/3). English-Efik dictionary and Efik-English dictionary. (2 vols). Liverpool.
* Agheyisi, R.N. (1986). An Edo-English Dictionary. Ethiope Publishing Corporation, Benin City.
* Gardner, Ian (1980). Abuan-English, English-Abuan Dictionary. Delta Series I. University of Port Harcourt and N.B.T.T., Jos.
* Hutchinson, John P. & Cyffer, Norbert (1990). Dictionary of Kanuri. Foris Publications, Holland.
* Jungraithmayr, H. (1991). A Dictionary of Tangale. Reimer, Berlin.
* Kaufmann, Elaine (1985). Ibibio dictionary. African Studies Centre, Leiden.
* Schuh, R.G. (1981). A dictionary of Ngizim. University of California Publications in Linguistics 99, Berkeley.
* Sterk, J.P. (1994). A dictionary of Gade (Nigeria). Reimer, Berlin.
* Taylor, F.W. (1932) A Fulani-English Dictionary. Oxford.

For some more languages, there is what is called a "vocabulary". A vocabulary is something like a small dictionary – usually with 2000-4000 entries –, ideally with a reversal. Here are some vocabularies of Nigerian languages:

* Frajzyngier, Z. (1985). A Pero-English and English-Pero vocabulary. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin.
* Matsushita, S. (1974, 1976) A comparative vocabulary of Gwandara dialects. In M. Tomikawa (ed.) African Languages and Ethnography II. Institute for the Study of Language and Cultures of Asia and Africa.

The next smaller unit of description is usually called a "wordlist". A wordlist is a collection of words in one language – usually English – with their corresponding words in the language which is studied. Often, these wordlists have been collected for comparative studies of whole language groups. Here are some examples:

* Bouquiaux, L. (1964). A wordlist of Aten (Ganawuri). Journal of West African Languages I(2):5-25.
* Brosnahan, L.F. (1967). A wordlist of the Gokana dialect of Ogoni. Journal of West African Languages IV(2):43-52.
* Hoffmann, C.F. (1965). A wordlist of Central Kambari. Journal of West African Languages II(2):7-31.
* Kraft, C.H. (1981). Chadic wordlists (3 Vols). Reimer, Berlin
* Williamson, K. & K. Shimizu (1968-73). Benue-Congo Comparative Wordlist. 2 vols. West Africa Linguistic Society, Ibadan.

Text collections
Some colonial officers, missionaries and scholars have collected proverbs, folktales, songs and other parts of the rich oral tradition of Nigerian languages. Here are just a few:

* F. Edgar (1910-1913). Littafi na Tatsuniyoyi na Hausa. 3 vols.
* R.S. Ratray (1913). Hausa Folk-lore, 2 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press.
* A.H.M. Kirk-Greene, Hausa ba dabo ba ne, Ibadan: OUP, 1966.
* C.E.J. Whitting, Hausa and Fulani proverbs, Lagos: Government Printer, 1940.